


Left me cold

by counting_cacti



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Female Jon Snow, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-08-11 16:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counting_cacti/pseuds/counting_cacti
Summary: For the past 16 years Jaime Lannister has believed his soulmate to be dead.Since birth Lyarra has believed herself to be a bastard.In the end, they're both wrong.Sorry I'm awful at summaries, basically this is the asoiaf soulmates au no one asked for.





	1. Prologue

_“Do you not have another son Lord Tywin? Another heir?”_

The impact hurts the most, rattling up Jaime’s arm like a wave. As if his bones themselves are shaking.

_“You will be my guard, boy, far more useful than your father.”_

Pain from the graze comes after. The smarting sting of shredded skin. Burning.

_“Listen little knight, they sound like pigs. Pigs on a fire.”_

There’s an uncomfortable numbness now. Flowing through his knuckles, spreading into his fingers.

“_Burn them all, burn them all, burn th….”_

Jaime stumbles from the wall, cradling his hand. He’ll be lucky if he didn’t break it. “Fool. Damn fool.” He hisses, pointlessly. There’s no one around to hear. At least the voice was gone. Retreated into the hazy area of his mind where it was always waiting. Aerys spoke more to Jaime now than when he’d actually been alive.

The young knight had been, almost exclusively, shut up in his chambers since the siege. Not of his own will of course. But there was likely turmoil enough without a Kingslayer walking around. Or perhaps Tywin simply didn’t want Robert Baratheon to change his mind around Jaime’s pardon. It seemed doubtful though. Stark remained his greatest persecutor and the man was halfway to Dorne. Hunting down the sister that had started this whole fucking mess. Jaime counted it as good riddance. He despised Ned Stark. Despised his rank hypocrisy, his condescending honour. How his cold grey eyes had latched on to Jaime, labelling him as a criminal. In that regard Northerner had been the first of many.

Jaime hoped he stepped on a snake.

Restlessness hit him again, inching up his spin to quiver in his chest. He hated being cooped up. Ever since he was little. Tyrion could hunch over a book for hours, not leave his room for days, but it made Jaime _itch_. As if something was thrumming under his skin, demanding to be let out. It was the same thrum that had led him to his most ridiculous stunts.

Almost unconsciously he felt his uninjured hand stroking his arm, tracing the lines he could see without looking. A golden lion. Rearing on its hindlegs, glinting like metal. But soon his fingers grew impatient tapping against the skin instead, the rhythm becoming more and more aggressive.

It said a lot when even his soul mark couldn’t comfort him.

Instead of dwelling on it he sprang to his feet and began to pace. 9 steps to cross the room. 5 to the window. 8 to the door. 8 back to the window. More if he dragged his feet. Probably less if he jumped.

Jaime couldn’t help wondering if this is what madness felt like.

He shook the thought off. It would be better soon. When the hostilities died down and festivities took over. He was to attend Robert Baratheon’s crowning, he knew that. And when Cersei married the brutish man, well, it would be an insult if her brother didn’t attend, surely? Then he could leave this damned room, could finally train again. Walk through the city and take comfort in every face he saw. Every woman, man and child. They were there because of him. That fact alone was worth a hundred scornful Ned Starks.

Jaime came to a stand still. Clenched his left fist experimentally. It ached for sure, but not nearly enough to be broken. And he hardly used his left hand in anycase. Arthur had alway chastised him over the fact.

“What kind of tradesman can only work with one of his hands? What kind of artist?”

Arthur and never called swordplay ‘fighting’. He always compared it to ‘dancing’ or ‘artistry’. From anyone else it would have seemed pretentious, but from the Sword of the Morning? Well, the comparison was true.

Jaime was surprised to find he missed him.

He couldn’t help wondering what the older knight would have done in his place. What oath he would’ve chosen to keep. Perhaps he’d ask. Jaime wanted Arthur to hear the truth of what happened, not the half -stories that he knew were being spread. He hoped they’d meet before Jaime left.

He would return to Casterly Rock when this was over. Jaime was certain of that now. His time apart from Cersei had taught him that what they had, whatever it was, must stop. She was to marry Robert, be his queen, have his children. And Jaime, his soulmate would be born any day now. 17 years was certainly enough of a gap in age. He would not risk her, risk the gift they’d been given. Not for anything in the world.

Again his hand travelled to his left arm and again his fingers traced his waiting lion. Soon, it told him. Soon.

\------------------------------------------------

2 days later, when Jaime saw the new mark on his arm, his first emotion was shock. Then a joy so furious he almost struggled to breath. Then finally fear and horror crept in. Of all the marks, of all the families? Happiness wrestled with panic. Dismay wrestled with wonder. The sheer amount of emotion drowned him, wracked him like a physical force.

\------------------------------------------------

6 hours later when Jaimes’ marks faded to near obscurity the feelings were just as overwhelming, only without disrepency. There was only one sensation. Pain. Like a blade being twisted through his body, shredding, puncturing. It was the worst thing he’d ever felt.

And then came the emptiness. The terrible consuming emptiness. Because there was one reason, one possible source of Jaime’s pain.

His father knew it too.

“It could not have been Rhaella’s baby. It will not be born for 5 months at least.”

Tywin shifts, pacing the room as Jaime had such a short time ago. “Likely a Blackfyre, or perhaps just someone of Valeryen descent. Either way, dangerous. Perhaps..”

The sentence goes unfinished but Jaime hears it regardless. Perhaps this was for the best. It makes bile burn his throat and leaves him retching on the tiled floor.

His soulmate was dead. Dead before she’d even really lived.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Hundreds of miles away Ned Stark held a screaming infant. Kept a red stained cloth pressed to her wrist, though the bleeding had stopped long ago. He couldn’t bear to look at what he’d done. The future he’d taken away.

Only Lyanna’s words kept him upright.

“If Robert finds out, he’ll kill her Ned. You have to protect her. Promise me. Promise you’ll do whatever it takes.”

Whatever it took.

For his family, Ned would defy the gods themselves.


	2. Lady Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the lovely comments! And I'm sorry this chapter isn't sooner. I realized I should probably actually have a basic plotline of what I was going to write. Plus I just started a new school which is always hectic.
> 
> I'm going to (hopefuly) be updating once a week from now on.

Lyarra surveyed the sticky mess that coated the corridor’s floor. It smelt, she noted, very much like honey. A key ingredient in all Arya’s favourite drinks. She turned to her youngest sister, eyebrow raised.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Then who’s was it Arya, the snarks?”

She’d meant it as a jape, but it only made the small girl scowl more. “Only if that’s our new name for Theon and Robb.”

“Aye. it may be a fitting one at that. You’re certain it was them?”

Arya scuffed her boot. “Theon tripped me. And Robb just laughed.” Lyarra noticed a wobble in the girl’s fierce tone. Arya had never liked to show how much things hurt her. Even when she was little. Instead she’d find ways to lash out. Breaking toys, pulling hair. Lyarra had learnt long ago it was best to be delicate in such times.

“They don’t mean it like that Arya, Robb especially. Maybe they thought you’d find it funny too?”

She received a look that said very clearly such a thing could never and would never be laughed at. 

“I’m going to hit them.”

Lyarra had to force down a laugh, certain it would be ill received. “I think that would be a very poor idea. We’re already late for sewing.” Seeing her words weren’t enough she took the younger girls arm and tugged her away form the spilt drink. They made it about 4 steps before Arya dug her heels in.

“Come now, it’s not that bad,” Lyarra consoled. “Thing of it as practising stabbing, yes?”

“I would rather you didn’t put such ideas in Arya’s head, Snow.” 

Catelyn Stark had materialised under a nearby arch, arms folded beneath dark blue sleeves. Her voice held all the coldness of distasteful courtesy. Sometimes Lyarra wished her father’s wife would just admit to her hatred outright. The bastard was very much a Northerner in her dislike for painted words.

“Of course, Lady Stark.”

“She was just making it more fun.” Arya interjected sulkily.

Lyarra couldn’t help wincing. She’d always feared that Lady Stark would believe she encouraged Arya’s abrasiveness.

“It shouldn’t need to be ‘more’ fun Arya. Sewing is a noble art.” The young girl rolled her eyes at her mother’s arching tone. Instead of answering she grabbed Lyarra’s hand and made an escape.

“And don’t run in the corridors!”

They arrived at the parlour panting but grinning wildly. It was Lyarra’s favourite thing about Arya. If her sister wished you to be happy, it was difficult to be otherwise.

As Lyarra had predicted they were late for the ‘noble art’. Sansa, Jeyne and a smattering of others were already sitting bent over fabric and thread. Lyarra slipped in as quietly as she could, the effort ruined by Arya all but stomping behind. Sansa and Jeyne looked at each other smirking.

Lyarra fished her half finished embroidery from the basket and sat on an empty stool. Despite having no real talent for it, she enjoyed sewing. The repetitive nature was oddly soothing, and it gave her time to think. Nothing of great importance, often times she couldn’t even remember what. Robb would tease her and say she was brooding, but Lyarra preferred to think of it as finding peace.

Sadly her current peace was ruined when she heard giggling to her right. Looking up she saw Jeyne whispering and pointing. With a flash of embrassessent she realized her sleeve had slipped down her arm. Lyarra tugged it back into place her cheeks glowing crimson.

“Don’t mind them Lya, they’re stupid.” Arya hissed fiercely, voice deliberately loud. Lyarra forced a smile before ducking her head. 

She hated the scar on her wrist.

It was a splotchy pale thing, not very big but jaggard. It had strange ridges too, most likely from ill repaired veins underneath. Worst of all it hurt. Sometimes only a faint ticklish kind of pain, like a spider crawling up her arm. Sometimes a dull ache. Sometimes a horrible stabbing sensation as though she’d impaled her wrist on a spike.

When she’d first asked her father he had told her the scar was from a burn, but then a few years ago he’d said she cut herself as a babe. Lyarra just assumed he had forgotten and was too embarrassed to say. Or perhaps it was to do with her mother. Most of the mysteries in her life were rooted in that one great one.

But where she’d got it didn’t really matter a great deal to Lyarra. Knowing certainly wouldn’t get rid of it. And in all honesty, that was all she really wanted. Sometimes the mark felt almost like a brand.

Lyarra sighed, threading her embroidery with far more force than was truly necessary. Far too much force as it turned out, the thread knotted and pinched the fabric. The stitched direwolf was left misshapen, nearly unrecognizable. 

‘Fine,’ She thought fiercely, tying it off with a yank. ‘Fine.’

Lyarra still felt irritable 2 hours later as she walked across the courtyard towards the library. It was just her luck that she meet Theon on the way.

“Is that a limp I see Snow? You been working in the stables again?”

Lyarra grit her teeth, deliberately walking faster. It was a cruel joke and the ward knew it.

A few months ago there had been a groom at the Winterfell stable who’d winked at her whenever she came to get her horse. Lord Stark had fired the man when he found out, but the rumours remained. The worst part came when her father had taken her aside, gently admonished her for her ‘behaviour’. Told her to be more careful.

A slap to the face would have been less humiliating, and would have felt equally just.

It had been a lesson though. The day Lyarra truly learnt that reputations are not fair. That the only people who seem to have control over them, are the people that won’t be affected by the aftermath. Like Theon bloody Greyjoy.

“Leave me alone.”

But the boy persisted, keeping up with her at a lazy jog. “Well, now. Someones in a bad mood. Did you realise the stableboy wasn’t actually going to marry you?”

“I said leave me alone Theon.”

“You shouldn’t take it too hard you know, just aim lower. A farmer perhaps? Or maybe a…”

Finally Lyarra had had enough. She came to an abrupt stop and whirled around.

“Will you fuck off?”

Lyarra only had a few guilty seconds to revel in the surprise on Theon’s face, before a voice rang out from her left. 

“What’s going on?”

Her eldest brother hurried towards them, almost running, clearly sensing the upcoming storm. Robb always seemed to be playing peacekeeper these days. 

Seeing him, Theon regained his smirk and turned to make a casual exit. 

“Snow’s gone feral Robb. Best stay away.”

Both Lyarra and Robb watched him saunter away in silence. The discomfort was grating, but underneath was something that hurt far more. Theon was a pig but Robb still loved him, treated him like a brother. It was as if he could no wrong.

“Are you alright?”

Lyarra couldn’t find it in her to confront Robb. She never could. Instead she sighed, nodding in response.

“I’ll talk to him about it, whatever he said, he didn’t mean it...”

At this Lyarra choked back a laugh. Defending again. 

“Of course he didn’t.”

Lyarra waited to see if Robb would say anything else, but he only made a helpless gesture with his hand and walked off. Lyarra waited till he was out of sight before kicking the ground viciously, splattering her skirt with gritty mud. When the bout anger had drained she turned and walked back to her room. The library could wait.

She avoided her family for the next few days. Not out of spite. More an inherent tiredness that seemed to affect her more and more. Like she was tugging a weighted load through every conversation.

Instead she spent her time with the chattering servant girls who occupied the kitchen and laundry. Lyarra enjoyed their company. Some might call it shallow, but with them she wasn’t an inferior. She enjoyed hearing their stories as well. Whether all of them were true or not, they painted a world that could well have been hers.

Lyarra often wondered what her life would have been like had she been left with her mother. Not to say she wished for it. The bastard girl wasn’t so foolish as to think that it would have been better. Lyarra’s father loved her, he would not have taken her if he thought she’d have a happier life elsewhere. A traitrious voice whispered that her father wasn’t always right, but she ignored it. If she had to trust one person in the world, any one person, it would be Lord Stark. 

That in mind, Lyarra thought surveying the parchment on her lap later that day, he was very difficult to draw. 

She had wanted to make a sketch of the Starks for Robb’s name day, but it was going incredibly poorly. Bran and Sansa had been easy enough, and she’d taken a petty pleasure in making Theon’s nose slightly too large, but for whatever reason, she couldn’t get her fathers features right.  
After several more tries she tossed the offending piece on the ground and leant back, vaguely enjoying the gentle scratch of bark.

The godswood was something of a refuge to Lyarra. Had been all her life. The trees made her feel safe, wrapping her in a thick musty wall, air heavy with the smell of leaves. The weirwood tree had never scared her like some of the other children. In fact when she was younger she had spent hours talking to the face carved on its trunk. Prattling on about horses, sewing, her family. Anything that came into her head. She’d only stopped when Theon found out and started calling her mad.

Gods she hated that boy.

“Lya?”

The soft voice made her jump and whip round, only to relax when she saw who it was. 

“Were you sneaking up on me Bran?” 

The small boy shook his head fervently, making his hair slide to and fro. He didn’t say anymore though, instead sitting and shifting close. Lyarra’s arm wrapped her brother’s thin shoulders, almost out of habit.

They sat like that for a few minutes, watching steam rise from the pool and form patterns in the air. Listening to the rustle of leaves, the faint whistle of birds and their breaths echoing in the quiet. Lyarra felt a calm fall over her, centred by the warmth at her side.

“I saw something in the pool over there,” Bran said eventually. 

“A fish?”

The young boy frowned. “I don’t know what it was.”

Lyarra looked at him thoughtfully. He didn’t sound scared, just perplexed. “A reflection maybe?”

“Maybe.” He conceded, though didn’t seem convinced.

“We could go back and look?”

Bran shrugged in response, hands fiddling with the sticks at his feet. Curling his fingers around the damp wood.  
Lyarra took that as a ‘no’. Though, there was something he wasn’t telling her.

“So what are you supposed to be doing right now?”

The boy huffed stabbing a twig into the soft ground. He mumbled something under his breath.

Lyarra raised her eyebrow. “Sorry didn’t catch that.”

Bran huffed again. “Archery. With Robb.”

“Well what’s so bad with that?”

Bran looked up at her, a pout heavy on his lips. “It’s bad because I’m bad at it.”

Lyarra hid a smile at the age old struggle, not wanting him to take it the wrong way. She understood now though. Bran had grown up listening to tales of knights and heroes. Those tales didn’t describe the times before the heroes were, well heroes. Bran naturally assumed they didn’t exist. She tried to say this as best she could, but his pout only deepened.

Lyarra sighed. Time to try a different approach

“You’ll never get better if you don’t try. Just look at Robb.”

Bran’s ears perked up at the mention of his idolised older brother. “What about Robb?”

Lyarra lowered her voice to a conspiratory whisper. “Well, when we were 9 or so years old he was determined that he would be the best knife thrower in the world.” She twitched her eyebrows at the last few words and Bran giggled. 

“So every morning he went out to practise. And he’d never let me go with him. He said it was because father had said he wasn’t allowed and he didn’t want me to get in trouble.”

Bran nodded along, eyes wide.

“But one morning I followed him out and I watched. And watched, and it turned out the real reason he didn’t want me to see was because he was,” She drew out a pause, “terrible.”

“What?”

Lyarra grinned at her younger brother. “Completely awful. He stood 4 feet away and he still couldn’t hit the target.”

“But Robb’s so good now! He can hit almost anything.”

“Well, that,” Lyarra said, gently poking her brother with each word. “Is, because, he, kept, practising.”

Bran giggled, flailing to prevent her attacks until they were both out of breath. He flopped against her again.

“I just wish I could try without anyone watching. But there’s always someone there.”

Lyarra considered for minute, nibbling her lip. “Well, I could maybe move a target into the godswood later. Then you can practise here and no one will know.”

“You don’t think the gods will mind?”

His earnesty made her giggle and ruffle his hair fondly. “No Bran, I’m sure they won’t mind.”

“I suppose I might be able to then. If I have time.”

“Well that’s very gracious of you,” Lyarra tried desperately to keep the eye roll out her voice. It ended up coming out quite strangled.

“Now go, don’t keep Robb waiting.” 

She pushed him gently. He turned and gave her a messy hug, almost punching her in the jaw. By the time she regained her breath he was already halfway through the trees. “And don’t think too much when you shoot!” She shouted at his back.

The godswood swallowed the sound whole, the echoes disappearing before they’d even really begun. Soon Lyarra was very much alone again. She picked up her drawing half heartedly but put it down almost as quickly. Instead she rose to her feet and walked curiously to the pond Bran had pointed to. The one he’d claimed to see ‘something’ in. 

Peering into the water she couldn’t see how. The pool itself might not have been so deep but the overhanging branches obscured the bottom. Looking down was only an inky black. Besides, her father had always told her nothing could live in the pools due to the heat.

It was only when began to turn away, she caught a flicker. Out of the corner of her eye. When she turned back, there was only darkness.

Lyarra shook herself, unsettled, before slowly walking back to the castle. She knew it must been some sort of reflection.

But how on earth would flames have been reflected in the godswood pond?


End file.
